VELOCITY:DESIGN:COMFORT is the second album by Californian electronic band Sweet Trip, released 2003. But is it good???
So V:D:C is an album I've actually been aware of and listening to, on and off, for years- I'm fairly sure what initially drew me to it was the instantly recognisable and memorable album art, and what kept me coming back was the utterly unique sonic palette of the record. Describing Sweet Trip as an "electronic band" in the opening paragraph was intentionally vague, as that's the only word broad enough to really accurately describe what's going on in this record. So what does it sound like?
Well the album makes it's motives obvious from the first few seconds of fizzling, glitchy electronics- the album sounds utterly unique even 30 seconds in. It absolutely refuses to stand still, the rapid distorted beat over the indifferent ambient synths create this atmosphere that perfectly reflects that album cover.
The second track almost does a 180 in terms of digestibility, being this carefree, noisey pop ballad with these headbanging (what may be) guitars on the chorus and extremely dancey beat- I think I described this track as "the best pop song of all time" on twitter once, which is obviously hyperbole, but if it's something me and my brother can both enjoy, there must be something good about it.
After this, the album starts proper with VELOCITY- again, with the fizzing glitching electronics, but in a much more reserved manner- the IDM influenced rhythm section utterly refuses to settle down on a set rhythm. I think the album becomes even more impressive when you consider that this came out in 2003- it comes across as a vision of the future wear all music is sucked into a computer, then stretched and distorted and spat out, and this is what it then sounds like. I wouldn't be surprised if parts of this album were quite inspirational to early vaporwave artists, especially in the 4th track, FRUITCAKE AND COOKIES- it;s probably worth mentioning that alot of the songs are quite long- the album is 12 tracks at 73 minutes, which would normally be a huge turn off, just because of the pure time commitment for me, but the refusal of the songs to stay in one place for too long keeps my interest for the entire runtime. But anyway, FRUITCAKES AND COOKIES is easily a highlight in an album full of highlights. It starts with this extremely frail strumming of guitar strings amongst utterly acrid electronics, until the guitar is less with this innocent, almost childlike synth. The vocals are heavenly and aloof, the tracks flips between these quiet moments and electronics that sound like a robot is beating you to death. Which doesn't sound like a good thing, but it is, trust me.
I think it's worth mentioning that this album takes quite alot from shoegaze as a genre too- most of the vocals are way far down in the mix, and are often used as texture rather than actual vocals, with vocal parts being cut and spliced all over the place. I mean, Track 8 INTERNATIONAL has some pretty heavy Kevin Shields worship at the start, and some of the songwriting conventions may be hard to swallow if you aren't familiar with the genre- such as F&C's flowing 4 minute breathy "la, la-la, la" outro. I think that's likely what stopped me properly getting into the record before if anything.
What really elevates the album for me is how uncompromising the vision the album has is. It wouldn't surprise me if the band came up with the title as an artistic guideline, or like 3 commands to execute- the album literally refuses to stop moving as I said, hence "velocity", the sounds are always evolving in unique way that're sometimes noisey but sometimes quiet and understated hence "design", and then "comfort" is shafted to the bottom- hence the dense, noisey timbre that most of the record has. I think this could be reflected in the album cover too, with the 3 background textures reflecting the album's themes. The album just comes across as such a focused vision to create a truly unique piece of music- I could sit here and describe all the individual segments of every song, but it couldn't do it justice- the album is such a monolithic experience, it creates it's own space and inhabits it exclusively. It's a glimpse into a hazy, glitchy future in that pictured computer generated landscape, where everything is incredibly vast but you're hurtling through it at 1 million miles an hour, it's just a record not quite like any other.
I don't think I could describe this record any way other than a 10/10. It's so committed to doing it's own thing, the album has this serene beauty within the distortion and glitches, it's just great. Really really good album!
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